


A Price of Magic

by ChloeWinchester



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Sick Rumple
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-11
Updated: 2015-03-11
Packaged: 2018-03-17 09:09:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3523634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChloeWinchester/pseuds/ChloeWinchester
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An attempt to unlock a magical object leaves Rumplestiltskin with a nasty cold.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Price of Magic

“Rumplestiltskin, get back on that sofa right this moment.”

“I’m fine,” he assured, coughing politely into his arm. His cheeks were flushed, skin clammy, his hair in his face and his cough was absolutely ragged. “I’ll be alright, I’ve had worse, dear.”

“No, no, no, absolutely not.” Belle gently took his shoulders and guided him back down. He sighed, relinquishing the cane to her as she tugged for it. “You need to rest.”

“It’s just a curse, no worse than the flu, I’ll be fine.” His voice was deeper, coarser, throat on fire from coughing.

“The flu kills thousands of people a year and do you know why?” She asked, laying him back down on the pillows and blankets she’d laid out for him, tucking him in. “Because stubborn people don’t listen to a word their girlfriends say.” She smiled lightly at him, sitting on the edge of the couch.

“Stubborn? I’m not stubborn,” he teased, his breath rattling. Her brow pinched in worry.

“Oh, yeah, sure you’re not,” she managed to smile, gently feeling his forehead. “It’s not going down…” She whispered. “I’ll be right back, stay here,” she said firmly.

She went to the medicine cabinet, reading every bottle quickly to try and find something for a fever and ended up with three of them that all said the same thing. “I hate this realm,” she grumbled, choosing the one that fit more of his symptoms and came back with a dose and a glass of water.

He wasn’t used to this.

Being taken care of and looked after like this. He’d no idea what to do with himself. Letting Belle get him what he needed while he rested was difficult, this underlying surge of shame in his gut. He felt weak, and he was, his magic wasn’t working properly at all.

Funny what an old brooch can do. That would be the last time he fiddled with anything Cora used to own, no matter how badly Regina wanted to see what it could do.

He pushed himself onto his elbows when she came back, shakily taking the medicine and the water. “This is ridiculous,” he rasped. “The Dark One doesn’t get sick.”

“Well, Mr. Gold does, apparently,” she said. The white, tight t-shirt was stretched over his chest and she was well aware this was not the time to be noticing she could see right through it and all the tanned skin underneath, but he caught her staring anyway, smirking a little.

“Good to know I can still do that at least,” he chuckled. Belle rolled her eyes. “You stop that, you’re supposed to be sick, not alluring.”

“You were the one looking, dearie,” he said pointedly, leaning back on the pillows. He took another drink and winced, setting the cup on the coffee table.

“Does your throat hurt too terribly?” She asked, clearly fraught with worry. He touched her cheek with cold fingers.

“It does,” he nodded. “But I’ll be alright. No need to fuss so much.”

“You’re sick and you need to get better, there is absolutely a need to fuss so much,” she frowned, tucking the blankets around him. “Has no one ever taken care of you before?”

He looked away, shaking his head. “Once or twice when I was small. Don’t really remember it happening again.”

Milah was a selfish, selfish woman, he just hadn’t seen it before he’d hobbled himself. Any time he became ill she left, so as to not become ill herself though he always stayed to offer care for her, and she took Bae with her once he was born.

He hated those feverish nights alone, tossing under the icy breeze, leg too stiff to keep the fire going. The dreams of his child turning to ash in his hands and disappearing forever, Milah finally telling him what he’d already suspected: she didn’t love him. Such pain from those feverish nightmares.

Rumple looked at Belle, eyes pained with a soft plea in them she didn’t miss.

“Shh…” She soothed. “I won’t leave you. Let me go heat up some soup and I’ll be right back to you, I promise.”

She stepped into the other room, just on the other side of the counter where he could still hear her. His throat burned, the tightness in his chest making it so hard to breathe, the heat blazing over his skin making him too hot and too cold all at once. It had been centuries since he’d been sick like this and he loathed it. He grunted in frustration, raking  his hair from his damp face, curled and annoying as it had become.

He stared at the ceiling, watching the beams swirl together and it was dizzying. Why was it doing that? He didn’t remember doing it before…

“Strange house,” he muttered, shutting his eyes. That was no better. He grunted again, trying to find something to look at that didn’t make him sick. He glanced around the living room, at the fireplace, the windows, Bae-

“Bae?” He sat up a little, blinking at the chair his son was perched on, still just a thirteen year old boy.

Belle peered over the counter, following Rumplestiltskin’s gaze to the empty chair. “Rumple, sweetheart, what are you looking at?”

“You can’t- Don’t you see him?” He asked, looking back at her, then back to the chair, where the boy waved then burst into water, swirling into the floor and disappearing. He slumped back, sore throat tighter. “Nevermind. Nevermind, my mistake.”

Belle came around with a mug of warm soup, gently cupping his cheek. “It’s alright,” she said softly, helping him hold it steady. “It’s your fever, Rumple, it’s okay.”

“Shouldn’t be so foolish,” he said, throat soothed by the warm broth.

“It isn’t your fault, it’s not as if you can control it,” she promised.

“I can control what I believe and what I don’t,” he muttered. “I don’t want that madness to settle in again.”

She kissed his searing forehead, gliding her delicate fingers through his hair. “It’s not madness,” she promised. “You’re sick.”

“Which shouldn’t happen in the first place.”

“Be as cynical as you want when you’re well,” she smirked, placing a hand on his leg. “Just rest. I know it’s hard, I know you’re just dying to get down to that shop so we can be interrupted a few dozen times, but you have to rest. For me. Please.”

He couldn’t say no to that. Not to those big blue eyes and long eyelashes brimming with care and concern for him, wanting nothing more in the whole world but for him to get better. He gently touched her cheek.

“Alright, alright, I’ll behave.”

“And stop being a grumpy old man,” she murmured, raising her eyes with an amused smirk.

“Oh, I am not an old man!” He laughed, tickling under her chin.

“You’re three hundred years old, you’re an old man,” she decided.

“Fine, fine, but you’re in love with an old man.”

She kissed his cheek. “I wouldn’t have it any other way, either.”

He finished the soup in due time, but it didn’t stay down long. A violent coughing fit sent him gagging and he ended up hunched over and retching into a small trashcan with Belle holding his hair and rubbing soothing circles into his back.

Mouth rinsed and more water drank he tried eating again and managed to keep that down.

“Move the blanket for me,” Belle said, holding a little blue jar in her hand. He glanced at it.

“Why?”

“This’ll help you breathe,” she promised.

It was cold, but it helped immediately. Belle’s gentle hand carefully smeared the vapor rub along his chest, working it into his skin.

He closed his eyes and hummed, taking deep breaths without coughing. Belle watched his skin glisten, watched him breathe with ease and this was not appropriate what was she doing?

“Don’t worry, dearie, I’d do the same, we’re just too pretty,” he chuckled, peeking at her.

“You need to sleep,” she ordered, blushing, smiling. “Don’t make me get the dagger.”

He laughed softly and rolled his eyes. “Alright, alright, I’ll sleep,” he promised. “I’ll sleep.”

Belle stayed with him awhile, humming gently to him, patting his heated face with a cool cloth that would hopefully lull him to sleep.

The nightmares were horrible. Most of the time he could keep them to himself so Belle wouldn’t worry but these were so different. These were intense and vivid, and his worst horrors realized.

The dagger in a vengeful hand, Belle’s breath leaving her with her life under his hands as he was ordered to strangle her, crying so hard and begging to be able to let her go.

Baelfire’s headstone, long gone, long dead after so long, died so young because of his cowardice, Baelfire’s body given back to him after being taken for the ogre wars, broken and small and gone, just gone, just gone…

Belle screaming at him she didn’t love him, laughing in his face and telling him it was all a trick, all a lie, just a way to make the Dark One weak and oh how weak he’d become for her, just for her-

Belle locked in the tower being burned and flayed alive just for loving him. Her father bellowing at her to recant what she’d said, to take it back, to vow she would not love the Beast and she would not. She would not and from her pain, for all her suffering, she stood at the edge of the balcony rail, closed her eyes, whispered his name and fell down, down, down and he couldn’t run to catch her, he couldn’t run-

“BELLE!” He sat bolt upright, drenched in sweat and sobbing into the dark. Night had fallen long ago and he groped for life, for his whole life, his world, trying to focus his gaze.

“Rumple, shh…” There she was, at his side from the other room, book falling to the ground as she took his face in her hands. “Shh...I’m here. I’m here, it’s alright. You’re safe.”

“Don’t jump. Don’t jump, Belle,” he begged. “Not for me, not for me, just tell him you don’t love me and it will stop, I’m so sorry…”

Belle knew what Regina had told him. What he’d thought happened to her and she couldn’t blame him for nearly beating her father to death for it. She might have done the same on an off day.

“I won’t,” she promised. “I’m not going anywhere, Rumple, shh…” She soothed, smiling softly at him. “I love you. Nothing can change that but no one will hurt me for it. Not for loving you, Rumplestiltskin, it’s alright.” She kissed his shaking lips, wiping tears away. At least his fever had broken now.

She turned on the lamp on the end table and pulled him into her arms, hugging him close a moment while he made sure she was real. He shook a little, curling close to her. She knew he wouldn’t be getting back to sleep and she couldn’t rest when he was so distressed.

“Shh, hey,” she breathed, smiling at him. “Would you like me to read to you?”

He smiled graciously, still touching her cheeks and her hair, just to be very sure. “Please, sweetheart. That sounds lovely.”

Soon his head was in her lap, her voice falling over him while she smoothed his hair back. Soft, soothing and so pleasant.

Belle smiled down at him when he nestled closer to her, the serene look in his eyes making her heart swell.

“‘...about half our height, and smaller than the bearded Dwarves. Hobbits have no beards. There is little or no magic about them, except the ordinary everyday sort which helps them to disappear quietly and quickly when large stupid folk like you and me come blundering along...’”

She read until dawn, the light touching his hair and glaring into her eyes. She looked up, then down at him, smiling at his sleeping features.

He’d be just fine.

With the book to her side Belle fell asleep with one hand on the back of his head, as if to take the nightmares from him. Simple as it was, it worked.

Though in his time before Belle Rumple would have found it sickening, it seemed love did do miraculous things.

 


End file.
